It is not too much to say that this marks the beginning of a new science—the science of Political Economy. The age of forerunners is past. Quesnay and his disciples must be considered the real founders of the science. It is true that their direct descendants, the French economists, very inconsiderately allowed the title to pass to Adam Smith, but foreign economists have again restored it to France, to remain in all probability definitely hers. But, as is the case with most sciences, there is not very much to mark the date of its birth or to determine the stock from which it sprang; all that we can confidently say is that the Physiocrats were certainly the first to grasp the conception of a unified science of society. In other words, they were the first to realise that all social facts are linked together in the bonds of inevitable laws, which individuals and Governments would obey if they were once made known to them. It may, of course, be pointed out that such a providential conception of economic laws has little in common with the ordinary naturalistic or deterministic standpoint of the science, and that several of the generalisations are simply the product of their own imaginations. It must also be admitted that Smith had far greater powers of observation, as well as a superior gift of lucid exposition, and altogether made a more notable contribution to the science. Still, it was the Physiocrats who constructed the way along which Smith and the writers of the hundred years which follow have all marched. Moreover, we know that but for the death of Quesnay in 1774—two years before the publication of the _Wealth of Nations_—Smith would have dedicated his masterpiece to him. The Physiocrats must also be credited with the foundation of the earliest “school” of economists in the fullest sense of the term. The entrance of this small group of men into the arena of history is a most touching and significant spectacle. So complete was the unanimity of doctrine among them that their very names and even their personal characteristics are for ever enshrouded by the anonymity of a collective name.[8] Their publications follow each other pretty closely for a period of twenty years, from 1756 to 1778.[9]